The War Between Men and Women

Very cute, with clever interweaving of cartoon and live action ( particularly for an older movie. Lemmon does an outstanding job, as does Gerritsen. Many endearing scenes, peppered with mostly good fun throughout.

One of Jack Lemmon's most innocuous pictures. He plays a professional humorist in New York City, a cynic and confirmed bachelor quickly losing his eyesight, who thinks very little of marriage, women and dogs. How soon do you think it will be before bookstore manager (and marriage-minded divorcée) Barbara Harris gets him to the altar? She's got the dog, plus three kids and a puppy dog-like former husband, but what's in it for Lemmon? We are never sure what motivates him to take on this brood, to attempt winning over the children, to compete for attention with the ex-spouse. It isn't incredible that Jack should fall for Miss Harris (she's winsome and a little daft, despite an ugly hairdo), but it is fairly difficult to believe Lemmon's character would take this plunge--and there's nothing in the script to convince us otherwise. The production is colorful, the animation interesting (if not amusing) and the acting very fine (particularly by young Lisa Gerritsen), however the essence of a plausible story is missing. Based on the writings of James Thurber, screenwriters Danny Arnold (who also produced) and Melville Shavelson (who also directed) shift from satire to the more outré, silly kind of TV comedy without grounding the scenario in a bittersweet style of realism. As such, the movie is one-part comedy (with satirical inflections), one-part drama (with pathos) and one-part character study (disguised as a family's journey). It isn't any wonder the end results are cute, yet iffy. Shavelson, Arnold and Gerritsen had all previously tackled Thurber on the short-lived television series "My World and Welcome To It". **1/2 from ****

I remember the time period when this movie came out. I never got to see the film at that time, which is too bad, because I liked the 1969 William Windom series, "My World, and Welcome To It." Both had roots in James Thurber, and both used live action and animation.

OK, so maybe this isn't Jack Lemmon's greatest movie. And I suppose it would not resonate with audiences in 21st century America. But you had to be there to really understand.

As it is, both Jack Lemmon and Lisa Gerritsen give great performances, and Jason Robards' appearance is always welcome. This is not a movie for everyone, but it is well worth a watch!!!

"The War Between Men and Women" is a film that is based on the life of the humorist, James Thurber. But instead of setting it during Thurber's lifetime and using his name, the story is set in 1972 and with different names for the various characters. It also takes liberties with Thurber's life story.

When the story begins, Peter (Jack Lemmon) is a bit of an old crank...a single, dog and child-hating bachelor and proud of it. However, when he meets Terry (Barbara Harris), his resolve to remain single vanishes...as well as his hatred of kids and dogs since Terry has both. The rest of the film is about his adapting to this change in lifestyle....as well as Peter dealing with Terry's ex- (Jason Robards Jr.).

As you'd expect with the actors, the acting is the best part of this film. As for the script, it's decent and entertaining. My only quibble is that I'd love to know how close this story is to Thurber's life. I mentioned some of the similarities above but am not sure how much of the story was 'Hollywoodized' and how much is true.

The drawings that Peter makes throughout the film are based on the art style of Thurber as is the character being legally blind and an old crank. Thurber himself could not have made the drawings or weird animated portion as he'd died in the early 1960s.

A few weeks ago, I accidentally stumbled into the beginning-after the credits-of this movie while flipping channels. Since it was late, I didn't bother to watch the rest of it so when I found it in the listings again a few days later, I immediately time recorded it on the DVR. I'm very glad I did as I was enthralled by Jack Lemmnon's performance as a cartoonist who's going blind and, despite his cynical attitude concerning women and children, meets a lady (Barbara Harris) with three kids that he falls for as her temper matches his to a T! There's also her ex-husband (Jason Robards) to deal with whenever he comes to visit. Of the offspring, the most charismatic is the middle one played by Lisa Gerritsen-perhaps best known as Phyllis' daughter on both "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the spin off "Phyllis"-who has a speech impediment. As Lemmon's character is based on real life cartoonist James Thurber, we see drawings and animation by Playhouse Pictures that is directly inspired by his work including a perfect rendering of his picture tale called "The Last Flower". To me, The War Between Men and Women is both hilarious and very dramatically touching so on that note, this movie is highly recommended.